It might not be officialy here but winter is back and with it the possibility of being snowed in at any time either at work or visiting a friend.
What do you do to ensure you will be able to survive being stranded?
My company has water and granola bars as part of our official emergency response plan. None of my co-workers with Celiac could eat these.
I keep 2-3 cans of salmon in my desk drawer.
I also keep a soya milk in a tetra carton and "safe" margarine (frozen) at my friends house as this is the most likely place we would get stranded if bad weather were to catch us out while visiting. I don't worry about her using these products and possibly cross contaminating them as she hates the stuff.
I am planning to pack a small box for the car just in case. I suppose it should be items that can stand up to freezing and thawing.

great idea Susan -- we think about making sure there are blankets and the like in the trunk in case we end up in the ditch...but duh, if you're stranded for any length of time, you're going to have to eventually eat too! I'm going to start getting ours together.

Don't forget to add a first aid kit and some sort of portable weather radio because the new ones handle all emergencies including hazardous materials and "Amber Alerts" for lost children. Also have something bright with you such as a scarf to wave in case you are lost.

I'm having to rethink my line of work. I've been in disasters, but when I go out for 2-3 months at a time, I can't possibly pack that much food with me, so I don't know if I'll be able to go back to work as it can be a challenge just to find regular food, much less "specialty items." Especially in rural areas.

Food is definitely something to think about because I can attest to the fact that when the Red Cross or Salvation Army comes in, the food is generally warm and it's there but it does not take dietary restrictions into account. If you are worried about cross contamination, I would not get food from the Red Cross as it comes in semi trucks packed with everything from peanut butter and crackers to canned veggies. They're good people doing good work, but following the motto, "do the greatest good for the greatest number of people."

It's funny - I've been thinking a lot about this recently - even before I saw this thread.

We always have a lot of food in the house but I really should write down a list and get it sorted out. We always have boxes of rice milk, but for protein I'm not sure what we'd do. (It's my dairy allergic kid I'm thinking of.)

We do have a lot of camping gear so we should maybe make sure we have a good supply of those mini propane tanks so that we could use our camping bbq and camping stove to prepare food in an emergency. I guess if you think "camping" you can get a decent little kit together.

When Y2K was about to hit, we got a huge botte (5 L? 10 L?) of water and bought a cool hand pump for it. See http://www.watershed.net/dolphin_pump.htm for a pic. I guess it would be a good idea to get another large bottle of water!

I've always wanted to get the hand-cranked radio ( http://tinyurl.com/ygdaks ) that Lee Valley sells. Maybe Santa will bring me one some day...

What I really need to work on is a user guide for my kids - that is, a document that explains them and their allergies (etc.) to people, in case something happens to my DH and I and they are left in the hands of non-FA-aware people, even for a short while!! I had stuff written down once upon a time but it's all out of date now...

Another thing people don't think about is keeping all important papers in more than one place. Most people keep birth certificates, etc. in their house. Well, that's great if you're home and you can get to them, but what if a tornado wipes your house out? Now there is nothing to prove that that house is yours, etc. I've seen it happen.

Stock pile more than you think you will need. Your neighbors might need help, you may end up with more people in your house than you planned. Something good to have is MRE's (Meal ready to Eat) packages, you can order them on the internet and get the little chemical heater packets. There are certain times that you do not want to use anything with an open flame in a disaster (gas mains may be broken, gas lines into homes could be broken, etc.) With those, they heat themselves without open flame which makes them safer.

Keep medical information on yourself at all times. If your house is gone, but you have your medical info on you, it will be that much easier to replace prescriptions. Pharmacies might not have power to check on what prescriptions you have.

Keep a stock pile of cash on hand for emergencies. If there is no power, credit cards can't be used. Last year we were told to have at least 1-2 weeks worth of cash on us because we didn't know what would be where we were going when we were deployed.

I just bought a hand cranked radio at Wal-Mart it was quite inexpensive ($14.99) and it has an LED light on it too...you should check out the website getprepared.ca for some ideas about what you may need in an emergency situation.
Ang

_________________13 year old son - anaphylactic to TN/PN, allergic to dust and moulds11 year old son - no allergies7 year old son - no allergies

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